1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an enclosure for fiber optic cables. More particularly, the present invention relates to a field-based enclosure, where a fiber optic distribution cable is spliced to one or more fiber optic customer drop cables.
2. Description of the Related Art
In the communications industry, fiber optic communication is becoming very popular. Fiber optic cables offer higher bandwidth and lower signal loss compared to conventional twisted pair cables and coaxial cables. In a typical fiber optic cable system for providing communication services to customers, a fiber optic distribution cable which may contain four, eight or more optical fibers is buried underground along a street or perhaps strung above ground along utility poles. At geographically spaced intervals, a technician splices a fiber optic customer drop cable to a fiber of the distribution cable. For example, at a property line between a first and second office building, the technician may tap into the distribution cable and connect several customer drop cables for the first office building and several customer drop cables for the second office building to a single one of the optical fibers in the distribution cable.
The splices must be protected from the elements. Typically, the splices are housed inside an underground enclosure or vault, such as the vault illustrated in U.S. Pat. No. 5,652,820, which is hereby incorporated by reference.